Friday, July 21, 2006

Behold, The Power Of Corn

Forgetting price for a moment (we're environmentalists!), look purely at how much crappier the fuel economy is. Let's use the first vehicle on the chart. Hey! It's our absolute favorite car: a 2006 Chevy Monte Carlo. Normally, the ol' MC gets 21 city/31 highway with gasoline, but with ethanol, it's 16 city/24 highway. Cripes, that's a 20% hit. And the fuel costs more to boot.

And, the best part, you can't get it. E85 is barely available in the United States so even if you were willing to pay more and willing to fill up more often, you can't.* Crap. Is anyone even going to make these kinds of vehicles? Doeth! Leftlane News reports: Nissan announces E85 Armada.

*Our lawyers said we had to say, technically, you can fill up with E85 because there are a few stations that serve it up. But there aren't a lot of 'em! And, anyway, we like our corn the old-fashioned way. In a jelly jar.

I agree that E-85 is a bit of a scam, I think the logic behind it is the Farmers get easy business turning corn into sub standard fuel. I was fooled a few weeks ago by a sign that said gas was a dime cheaper than everywhere else. Until I pulled up to the pump I thought it was for regular gas but it was for E-85.